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Introduction The Campus Activism
Project is a 15 month-long study conducted by Political Research Associates,
a Boston-based research center, and funded by the Ford Foundation’s
Unit on Governance and Civil Society. The Project’s goal is to
generate a number of preliminary conclusions about how college students
acquire their political attitudes, the extent to which campus political
activity is shaped by off-campus political groups, and how the two large
political movements in the United States – the and the progressive
movement – compete on college campuses for the hearts and minds
of students. The conclusions reached here will be based on a research “snapshot” of
campus activism in 2003.[1] [pc1]

University campuses have long been the site of a range of ideological
battles in this country and elsewhere. Because colleges are touted as
the training locale for tomorrow’s leaders and the central venue
for academic freedom, they have become flashpoints for many debates on
political issues. Colleges also have been the focal point for issues
related to what and how curricular material is taught, and how students’ lives
are regulated by their schools. In order to understand contemporary movements,
we can benefit from an existing substantial body of research on campus
life and campus conflict.

As a preliminary step in the Campus Activism Project’s research,
we have reviewed the existing literature on student attitudes and campus
activism. This literature review summarizes the existing findings of
student surveys, work by popular commentators, and scholarly studies
that focus on political activism on campus. We review a number of approaches
that have been used to study campus activism, such as student attitude
surveys, participant-observer studies, interviews, and quantitative reviews
of existing data. Comparing different theoretical models, we explain
the usefulness of a particular model -- social movement theory -- for
the purposes of this study. Finally, we identify the specific research
questions we have chosen to address in this project.

Studying Campus Political Activity There has been no shortage of analysis
and documentation of student attitudes in the United States. In fact,
college students seem to be one of the most studied age cohorts, perhaps
because they are subjects to whom academic researchers have relatively
easy access. Students’ academic preparation and achievements, their
expectations and their level of satisfaction with their experience, as
well as their social attitudes and interests have all been topics for
research. The political activity of students, however, has not been studied
as extensively, although that is changing.

Looking at colleges and universities allows observers to note other
trends besides student activity. Students themselves have historically
been interested in what is taught, who gets to learn it, and how their
lives are affected by college culture, in college and beyond. But others,
including legislators, parents, administrators and social issue framers,
are also invested in these issues. Some have argued that the campus is
the site of a battle for who is in charge of society at large.[2]

Surveys of Student Opinion, Behavior, and Political Participation Since
the 1960s surveys have tracked the political ideology of students and
their political participation. There are several ways of measuring political
ideology; one is by studying political affiliations. According to the
Higher Education Research Institute’s (HERI) annual survey of first-year
undergraduates, more of today’s freshmen (27.8%) self-identify
as liberal or far left compared to 21.3% who describe themselves as conservative
or far right. Most students identify politically as middle of the road
(50.8%).[3] Identifying as liberal has become more common among college
freshmen over the past five years, and is at its highest point since
1975, although figures are still lower than the all-time high of over
40% in 1971.[4] Compare this to the population in general: in 2000, when
20% identified as liberal, 30 % as conservative, and 50% as middle of
the road or didn’t know/hadn’t thought about it .[5]

Noting that the HERI studies are of incoming freshmen, it is important
to examine what happens to students while they are in college. Using
recent longitudinal data from the Cooperative Institutional Research
Program (CIRP) surveys, researchers have concluded that attending college
has a liberalizing effect on students’ political and social views,
including attitudes towards women’s roles, civic values, and affirmative
action.[6] On the other hand, another analysis of CIRP data suggests
that interaction with peers and the general socialization process, rather
than the education process, may be affecting student political attitudes.[7]

Measures chosen by researchers to indicate political involvement can
sometimes limit the usefulness of the conclusions drawn. For instance,
one measure of political activity on campus is the degree to which students
participate in demonstrations. More students attended demonstrations
in 2001 (47.5%) than at any time since 1966 (15.8%).[8] But because we
have no information on the kind of demonstration, we cannot determine
if this indicates increased liberalism or increased conservatism, although
we will assume that participation in a demonstration is a political activity.

Another approach commonly used to document political activity among
college students is to examine how often they vote.[9] Although college
students vote more often than non-students,18-24 year olds vote less
often than any other age group.[10] Depending on the political significance
of the election year, between 16% and 32% of this age cohort votes at
rates that are consistently at least 20% lower than that of the total
population.[11] Further, they know less about current political events
and party platforms than their elders.[12]

But when surveyed about their political engagement, undergraduates report
they are interested in political issues, though not in the U.S. political
process, and that they are indeed informed about political issues.[13]
Some researchers have suggested the reason for low voter turnout among
college students is related to their low sense of political efficacy
while in college.[14] But there is evidence that many adults share this
sense of relative powerlessness in the political realm.[15] One difference
between college students and other voting age cohorts may be their belief
that voting is a choice, not a civic obligation.[16]

Some contemporary student leaders appear resistant to being labeled
as disengaged from politics. Students at a national Civic Participation
Summit in 2001 sponsored by Campus Compact (a national coalition of college
presidents committed to improving student civic engagement in on college
campuses), argued that many college students are engaged in civic activities
and, to capture this, that the definition of political involvement should
be broadened to include community service as a form of “service
politics,” because community service can lead to social change.[17]

Civic participation can be encouraged and developed, claims a recent
study by Anne Colby and her team at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement
of Teaching.[18] Colby looks at how higher education prepares students
for active civic participation, examines the rationale behind the trend
towards deliberate programming for civic engagement, and highlights current
best practices

Observers have often noted that student activism, like political activity
in general, occurs in waves. Many popular commentators noted that college
students became more conservative during the 1980s. “Generation
X” (those born between 1960 and 1980) has been described as less
altruistic, more self-absorbed, and less political than previous or subsequent
age cohorts.[19] Some even note that this trend has been exacerbated
by the events of 9/11/01,[20] although other data indicate that students
are more trusting of political institutions and more likely to be involved
politically since 9/11.[21] But prior to 9/11, researchers using the
CIRP data found that such a trend may reflect an increase in materialism
in the culture as a whole, coupled with uncertain economic times, rather
than a growing influence of conservative political or social policies.[22]
Contrary to public opinion in the 1980s, the lead researcher of this
study noted that the trend in decreased interest in social problems was
beginning to reverse direction by 1991.[23]

In addition to political ideology, survey research has identified other
factors that influence student political participation. Race, education
level, degree of political discussions with parents, level of feelings
of efficacy, political party affiliation and attendance at religious
services all positively affect voting, other forms of political participation
and community service.[24]

Conservative groups have conducted student surveys, as a way of uncovering
student attitudes that counter the description of students as liberal.
For instance, the now-defunct Foundation for Academic Standards and Tradition
(FAST), polled students in 2000 on issues pertinent to academic life,
in particular affirmative action in admissions and “political correctness.”[25]
Ninety-three percent favored fair enrollment, in their response to the
question, One of the survey questions read: “Asian-Americans do
so well academically that they are considered an over-represented minority
on some campuses. Some colleges, therefore, would rather have more Black
and Hispanic students than Asian-Americans. Do you think that colleges
should give preference to certain minorities, or should colleges strive
primarily for fair enrollment?” FAST interpreted the negative answers
to mean that 93% of college students oppose giving preferences to Blacks
and Hispanics.[26] The Independent Women’s Forum (IWF), a Washington,
DC-based rightist women’s organization, surveyed college students
shortly after September 11, 2001 and found a majority of students had
been at least noticeably affected by that day’s events. IWF highlighted
that 2/3 of students supported George W. Bush regardless of political
affiliation and that students reported that they prayed more often and
volunteered more after the attacks. IWF was also interested in attitudes
about Title IX, and found 87% of students support Title IX until they
are told that “350 male athletic programs have been cut to meet
the quotas under Title IX.”[27] Then 54% indicate enforcement has
gone too far.

Unlike the other surveys by conservative organizations, Americans for
Victory Over Terrorism (AVOT), a project of William Bennett’s Empower
America, polled U.S. students in May 2002 and found liberal leanings
among students, but that those leanings were coupled with lack of information.
The report asserted that college students lack knowledge about terrorism,
do not see America as representing superior values to other nations (71%
disagreed with this statement) and do not know the names of prominent
political leaders.[28]

Surveys of student attitudes and political behavior have generated plentiful
data readily available to researchers. Virtually all of the data expresses
political behavior as a measure of voting or attending demonstrations,
indicating levels of civic participation in the aggregate without specifying
whether the behavior supports conservative, centrist or progressive ideologies.
This has influenced analyses that give us general information about the
civic engagement of college students based on limited variables. Documentation
of the political attitudes and behavior of college students has so far
lacked specificity about the degrees to which conservative, centrist
and progressive students are actively engaged in political work on campus.

Theories of the Motivations behind Student Political Movements What
motivates student political activity has been the subject of lively debate
in the academic and popular presses. Some work has focused on student
movements in the1930’s and 40’s.[29] Later, examinations
of campus activism were heavily influenced by the impact of several events
in the 1960’s. These include the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley,
student involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, the development of
the Black Power Movement on campus, and student-led antiwar activity
during the Vietnam War era. Student activism during this period used
some standard tactics, such as petitions and demonstrations, and also
some more recently-developed activities, including sit-ins, strikes,
teach-ins, building takeovers, other forms of civil disobedience and
scattered violence. In part because of these tactics, campus activism
was labeled as “unrest,” “disruption,” and “undesirable
activity” by many university administrators and much of the general
public.[30] Initial theories of student political involvement focused
on the motivation of individual behavior, especially “misbehavior.” Case
studies or participant-observer studies in both the popular press and
scholarly journals chronicled the development of campus activism. Later,
other approaches that considered the cultural context of activism, or
that used theories that described group behavior, came into vogue. This
paper examines a sample from the range of these theories.

In the 1960’s many researchers attempted to explain the student
activism of the time using social/ psychological and structural-functional
theories –social science tools popular at the time. They tended
to examine individual motivation as an explanation for collective behavior
and depended on theories that described students’ behavior as radical,
deviant and subversive.[31] Some authors suggested student unrest was
the manifestation of psychological issues associated with adolescence
and the transition from childhood to adulthood, such as finding identity
through association with peers. [32] Others identified the cause as intergenerational
conflict: “Every student movement is the outcome of a de-authorization
of the elder generation,”[33] or alienation from the values of
their parents.[34] Some even suggested student activism was the result
of indoctrination by communist ideologues,[35] or the manifestation of
social disorganization.[36] These perspectives labeled students as irrational,
impulsive and vulnerable to outside influences.

Some researchers tended to generalize about student activists, characterizing
them as having high grades, coming from families with liberal politics,
placing an emphasis on social responsibility over achievement, tending
to be middle class, studying liberal arts, and delaying career choice.[37]
A sweeping characterization of college students as middle class reinforced
the notion that members of this age cohort have the free time and inclination
to become activists.[38]

Public opinion at the time associated student protest with violence
and the fear that permissive university administrators were losing control
of their institutions.[39] The President’s Commission on Campus
Unrest published the results of its examination into violence on campus
after the Kent State and Jackson State student shootings by National
Guardsmen.[40] The Commission described a nation in crisis, with its
colleges reflecting unresolved national conflicts with disruption and
increased violence. It recommended that the government, law enforcement
and university administrations acknowledge the value of dissent but work
to put an end to violence on campus. Another review by some of the same
members of that Commission offered an alternative set of recommendations,
calling for a more assertive reaction that would successfully prevent
further unrest.[41]

Some researchers noted that college students, who tended to come from
the middle class, shared many of the liberal humanitarian values of their
families.[42] So, far from experiencing discontinuity with the older
generation, students were acting on the values they had been socialized
to hold, and the success of their movements was said to be related to
the success of the socialization process. [43] The fact that elite institutions,
where students were more predictably middle class, were more likely to
be the site of student activism in the early 1960’s seemed to support
this theory. But the mass movements of the late 60’s grew to such
a large scale that it was no longer possible to find consistent ideological
links by class between students and their families.[44] Other researchers
suggested that individuals join a movement as a result of their own rational
choice. But these explanations do not account for evidence of more than
individual choice affecting behavior. After all, the 60s student protests
were clearly carefully planned collective actions by groups of activists,
not a random collection of individual actions.

These studies of campus activism in the 1960s and 1970s focused exclusively
on student activism on the Left. But as B.C. Ben Park has pointed out, “Not
all members of the same age group react to their historical surroundings
in the same way.”[45] And, in fact, during the 1960s, while student
radicals on the Left organized Students for a Democratic Society (SDS),
conservative students organized their own movement, Young Americans for
Freedom (YAF) with the help of William F. Buckley, Jr.[46]

The approaches reviewed above, conventional individualistic research
strategies, clearly have their limitations because they cannot apply
a consistent analytical framework to the full range of student activism.
In addition, the focus in this research has been almost exclusively on
student activism on the Left. With the exceptions of John Andrew, Howard
Becker and Lawrence Schiff, there has been little scholarly examination
of conservative campus activism.[47] Recently the popular press has once
again taken an interest in conservative campus activism.[48]

Without an understanding of conservative campus activism, researchers
miss an important piece of the context of Left campus activism, as well
as the obvious interplay between the larger social movements of the Right
and Left and corresponding interplay on campus. For instance, even though
there is current interest among progressives concerning the conservative
campus press, many of these papers have been in existence since the early
1980s.[49] The Institute for Educational Affairs (now the Collegiate
Network of YAF) is not a new phenomenon; it began in 1978 and by 1982
was supporting thirty college papers through its network.[50]

Other groups interested in influencing university life, such as alumni,
trustees, and critics of university policy or pedagogy also are not examined
by those who use conventional research approaches. And these frameworks
do not adequately explain the success of campus activism outside expected
parameters, such as mass mobilizations at non-elite schools (e.g. the
CUNY tuition strikes of the 1990s), effective campaigns with small numbers
of participants, (e.g. the anti-reparations movement), and the diffusion
of certain strategies across different types of campuses (e.g. the shantytown
movement to divest university holdings in South Africa).

Several studies examine campus activism using still other lenses. Alexander
Astin and others uses a topical review to categorize student and faculty
protest by their chosen issues during the 1960s and early 1970s.[51]
This has been a common approach for many who observe campus activism.
For instance, Tony Vellela (1988) seeks to counter the prevailing myth
that campuses were quiet during the 1980s by chronicling the rise of
opposition to U.S. interventions in Central America and CIA presence
on campus, concerns over the economy, and the rise of identity politics
and the influence on campus of the women’s movement and the movement
for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights.[52] Paul Loeb reviews
both those students who chose not to get involved with campus politics
and those who did, echoing the earlier work of Kenneth Keniston.[53]
Loeb suggests that students choose not to get involved in political action
on campus for a variety of reasons. First, they are the products of an
ethic of individualism that leads them to think, “they cannot be
the makers of history, but only its recipients.” [54] Second, they
lack access to historical role models of effective activists their own
age, though they distrust their peers who currently are activists, buying
in to a prevailing myth that student activists are dissidents. After
looking at the non-involved students, Loeb then shifts to student activists.
Through a seven-year series of interviews, he examines unusual student
activity, such as the rise of farm activism and political organizing
of fraternities, and more predictable collective action, such as the
environmental movement as well as those who recognize and want to respond
to the persistence of racism on campus. Loeb is interested in centrists
and community service as well and challenges this movement’s hesitancy
to adopt strong political stances as they appeal across the spectrum
of students for participants. He does recognize the value of, in his
words, “pre-political” activity, for those individuals whose
political education can be affected by their involvement in service work.
He also addresses the issue of “political correctness” on
campus, looking at opposition to identity politics as the creation of
the organized Right on campus and provides a useful summary of the works
of rightist authors Dinesh D’Souza and Alan Bloom as the main framers
of the political correctness debate.[55]

Robert Rhoads surveys student activism of the 1990s, through a series
of case studies that represent the predominant issues associated with
campus protests in the 1990’s.[56] Multicultural issues accounted
for the majority of incidents: campus funding and governance, world affairs,
and the environment trailed behind. Based as much on phenomenological
principles, that individuals seek meaning in their actions, as on collective
behavior theory, Rhoads suggests that the activist spirit of the 1960s
endured, despite its failure to achieve radical social change, and that
it is this collective consciousness that may be able to strengthen a “web” of
participatory democracy.

Arthur Levine and Jeanette Cureton, using a collection of student surveys,
characterize contemporary college students as “postideological,” meaning
that they do not tend to adhere to particular partisan or other political
affiliations or to place much faith in the electoral process and governmental
institutions.[57] They find today’s students maintain their optimism
about their own futures and more readily choose to become involved in
local versus national projects. This “new localism” often
takes the form of community service, which involves up to 75% of students
on campus.

Liza Featherstone examines activism by focusing on a specific campaign,
chronicling the development of anti-sweatshop activism on campus since
1997.[58] This movement took up the issues of globalization and sweatshop
manufacture of college insignia clothing to localize an international
issue. She notes that the anti-sweatshop movement highlights classic
issues for student groups: leadership develops rapidly and changes quickly;
funding is a continuous problem; and the challenges of participatory
democracy can create lengthy group processes which can heighten group
tensions. Featherstone’s research illustrates that some of the
advantages of researching a particular issue are the chance to observe
how political education happens within a movement and how goals and strategies
evolve over time.

Rich Cowan and the now defunct Center for Campus Organizing produced
an activist guide for moderate to progressive students in 1997 which
includes a directory of right wing organizations active on campus, the
campaigns they have waged, and an analysis of their strategies and levels
of effectiveness.[59]

[pc2] Campus Activism on Race, Class, Gender and Sexual Orientation
Issues Throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s political ferment
in the larger society intersected dynamically with campus life. The civil
rights, anti-war, women’s and gay and lesbian movements influenced
life on college campuses and were in turn affected by campus activity.
For instance, the successful efforts of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC) to mobilize students in lunch-counter sit-ins across
the South in 1960 made SNCC a leading organization in the civil rights
movement. The 1962 Port Huron Statement, marking the beginning of Students
for a Democratic Society (SDS), recognized the importance of the university
as a place where social change could flourish:

We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed
now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit….
Social relevance, the accessibility to knowledge, and internal openness,
these together make the university a potential base and agency in a movement
of social change.[60]

As Jo Freeman correctly predicted, the women’s movement was to
have a powerful influence on campus, and college campuses would become
the staging areas for feminist struggles.[61] And early women’s
liberation organizations at New York universities were active in shaping
the second wave of the women’s movement and making links with other
issues such as the massive mobilizations against the war in Vietnam.[62]

Students of color and working class students, along with women and sexual
minorities (lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people), bring
distinct perspectives to their college experiences. As members of groups
that are often marginalized, these students report struggles with their
identities on campus and with their sense of collective efficacy.[63]
Organizing around these identities, as well as on issues of gender and
sexual orientation, has come to be known as identity politics. Gay students
insisted on their right to create their own campus organizations beginning
in the early 1970s.[64] Wayne Glasker describes the history of African
American students organizing at the University of Pennsylvania from 1967-1990.
He identifies how the student struggle between two versions of integration,
assimilation and multiculturalism, reflects the social issues of the
culture at large.[65] The desire to experience support and solidarity
with others can create tension when the only available association is
not the best fit for an individual. For instance, Chicano students at
the University of Arizona expressed ambivalence about joining the only
Mexican/Mexican-American group on campus, MEChA: on the one hand they
felt the need to be part of a identity organization, but did not necessarily
feel aligned with its politics.[66]

In the 1960s students of color began to demand more of their schools,
identifying their struggle as the result of both individual attitudes
towards communities of color and policies and practices that came to
be known as institutionalized racism on campus. African-American Studies
Programs, and later Chicano and Asian-American Studies, owe their existence
to students of color and their allies organizing on campus.[67] Affirmative
action in admissions and a commitment to multiculturalism in curricular
and extra-curricular arenas by identity were prominent issues on campus
by the late 1960’s. [pc3] The value of these practices continues
to be debated today, partially as a result of conservative activism on
campus.

Conservative Studies of Campus Activism Several popular books by self-identified
conservatives have contributed to the literature about campus political
life. Alan Bloom sets the tone for criticizing the content of modern
collegiate liberal arts curricula.[68] His main thesis is that the demise
of general education requirements and replacement of the great books
of Western literature and philosophy with multicultural courses not only
have diminished the quality of contemporary education and demoralized
our young potential leaders, but have threatened the core of our democratic
process.

These ideas are echoed by Dinesh D’Souza, who defines what he
sees as “illiberal education,” or a close-mindedness and
intolerance among liberals on campus.[69] Through a collection of case
studies, he observes that a “new racism” is being created
on campus by resentment associated with affirmative action and a new
politics of sensitivity to issues of gender and sexual orientation that
has politicized scholarship. Katie Roiphe summarizes the conservative
argument about the harm feminism has inflicted on campus by detailing
her own experiences at Harvard and Princeton. She is critical of feminists
who project “victimhood” and create absolutist positions
where ambiguity should exist, especially concerning rape and sexual harassment.[70]
And Alan Charles Kors and Harvey Silverglate reassert this perspective
with further investigation of the polarization of political debate on
campus, documenting incidents of the “tyranny of progressives… asserting
absolute truth over the souls, consciences and the individuality of our
students.”[71] They present a series of anecdotes focusing their
criticism on what they see as major violations of free speech rights
around student and faculty discipline. David Horowitz and Peter Collier
(1994) produced an anthology of articles from their journal Heterodoxy
on “How to survive the PC campus.”[72] Using humor and sarcasm,
contributors to Heterodoxy, from almost the first issue in 1992, criticize
a “politically correct” culture that “restricts the
range of allowable opinions on campus.”

These books, written for the mass market, are designed to influence
public opinion about campus life by providing a conservative lens with
which to interpret campus events that most of the public rarely see.
They are examples of rhetorical writing in the best classical sense,
meant to enlighten and persuade.

While these works provide fascinating reading about student activism
from a variety of perspectives, collectively they fail to provide us
with a broad enough lens for the purposes of the Campus Activism Project.
For that we turn to research that utilizes the analytical tool of Social
Movement Theory.

Social Movement Theory Since the late 1980s, many scholars have adopted
a new analytical framework for the study of political, social, and cultural
activity. Originally developed by sociologists and now generally called “social
movement theory,” this approach has deeply affected how scholars
and others look at campus activism.[73]

According to Doug McAdam and David Snow, a social movement is “a
collectivity acting with some degree of organization and continuity outside
of institutional channels for the purpose of promoting or resisting change
in the group, society, or world order of which it is a part.” Social
movements do not exist in isolation, and often overlap with political
movements focused on elections and legislative campaigns. Social movement
theory is an important tool for understanding how civil society is constructed,
and how groups of people mobilize and organize to extend or limit democracy
and human rights in a society.[74]

Social movement theory has shifted the focus of research on students
from the individual student’s personal motivation and psychological
makeup as the cause for student activism. Proponents of this approach
look at what facilitates the development of a movement on campus rather
than what causes it.[75] In other words, they attempt to identify what
structural and cultural factors help or hinder the growth and effectiveness
of student activity instead of focusing solely on individuals’ ideologies
or motivations. They examine multiple elements of collective behavior
and over time have refined their analyses using concepts including resource
mobilization, political processes and opportunity structures, diffusion
(life-cycle theories), collectivity, movement culture, participant identity
and emotion, framing of issues, and strategic interaction.[76]

While a detailed examination of social movement theory is beyond the
scope of this literature review, a summary of some of the work on campus
activism that has used this approach is important for several reasons.
First, it can be applied successfully to activism on the Left and the
Right, allowing for the comparative study of different forms of political
activism on campus. Second, this approach allows us to understand the
degree to which groups are effective, because social movement theory
looks at other components of collective behavior besides ideology. Many
earlier studies, grounded as they were in trying to understand student
unrest in order to contain or control it, or to prevent its escalation
into violence, did not conceptualize student activism as part of a legitimate
movement of dissent. And finally, social movement theory allows for an
examination of campus activism that is initiated by non-students alongside
the study of student movements.

Although most of his work on the political Right used a conventional,
individualistic framework, Seymour Martin Lipset was one of the earliest
scholars to look at campus activism through a broader sociological lens.
He noted several factors that facilitate rebellion in college, including
that college students are a densely populated age cohort, are less tied
to ideologies, know less history, and have fewer responsibilities.[77]
Sarah Soule used the social movement concept of “resource mobilization” to
study the spread of the campus-based shantytown movement – a student
strategy of creating shantytowns on campus to urge the college or university
to divest its holdings in companies that did business with South Africa
in the 1980’s.[78] The student-built facsimile shantytowns on campus
lawns created a visual message about apartheid and the location became
a focus for organizing. Soule uncovered a positive relationship between
the level of student activism and the size of the school’s endowment,
suggesting that economic resources play a part in student activism.

Nella Van Dyke, working with the ideas of social movement lifecycles
and “movement families,” finds a positive relationship between
previous student activism and political activity on campus during the
1960s.[79] She also notes the presence of what she terms “activist
subcultures” on campus, which explained why activism on one issue
predicted student activism on multiple issues on the same campus. Kenneth
Andrews and Michael Biggs echo these conclusions in their retrospective
study of the 1960 sit-in movement in the South.[80]

Eric Hirsch contradicts earlier collective behavior descriptions of
campus activists as confused and troubled by using social movement concepts
that focus on the political processes, or factors that describe the development
of political power in a group.[81] His conclusions are that consciousness-raising,
the development of solidarity and the recognition of collective power
more accurately explained the 1985 Columbia University divestment protest.
And B.C. Ben Park provides a useful critique of various social movement
theorists who have studied campus activism through the mid 1990s.[82]
He suggests that the opportunities students have to form student community
on campus are prerequisites to the development of political consciousness,
which in turn influences student activism.

Ellen Messer-Davidow has contributed two analytical pieces to the study
of conservative campus movements. The first reviews the debate over political
correctness that began on campus in the late 1980s.[83] She suggests,
looking through a resource mobilization lens, that the Right has in place
an effective framing, recruitment and training apparatus that seeks to
relocate aspects of power traditionally held by universities away from
campus to sites more controlled by the Right, such as public opinion,
the courts and legislatures. In her second relevant piece Messer-Davidow
critically examines the growth of feminist studies as an academic discipline
that grew out of the social activism of the women’s movement.[84]
While she questions how a discipline that started out challenging the
university status quo became shaped and controlled by the very institution
it sought to change, the value of her book in the context of this study
is its careful examination of the structural elements that contributed
to a successful antifeminist backlash on campus.

Between 1991-1994 Messer-Davidow studied conservative movements, both
on campus and in Washington, D.C. as a participant observer, noting that
on the Right, “the agents for change are not the astute leaders
and hardworking followers but the tightly networked national and state
organizations.”[85] These groups provided carefully constructed
and controlled student training opportunities for future conservative
leaders, and Messer-Davidow documents with specificity the nature of
the ideological training, the framing and cultural molding which are
aspects of social movements according to social movement theory. By contrast,
she noted that those who used similar training for feminists applied
a less prescriptive pedagogy but were then stymied when their young women
participants balked at the idea of being labeled feminist. She sees fissures
in feminist faculty approaches, also, which according to her have made
social problems primarily the topic of discussion and debate rather than
opportunities for constructive social change. In challenging the old
guard’s canon by offering a new set of subjects to study in highly
analytical modes, she suggests that feminist scholars have perhaps let
their eyes stray from the prize.

Conservative student training opportunities like the ones described
by Messer-Davidow are not new phenomena. The Intercollegiate Studies
Institute, founded as the Institute for Educational Affairs, has supported
college students through summer conferences since 1959, and Morton Blackwell’s
Leadership Institute in Arlington, VA, has trained over 30,000 conservative
students since 1979.

Areas where social movement theory has not yet been used to explore
campus activism coincide with the interests of this study. How movements
deal with countermovements or conflict with groups opposed to their views,
such as the polarization around the Middle East, for example, or how
they handle complex and competing ideologies, like academic freedom and
campus speech codes, have not yet been thoroughly examined, and could
benefit from using this more nuanced theoretical approach.

Questions Provoked by the Literature

This study is being conducted at a time of increased campus activism
on the part of students and others. It benefits from a rich body of work
that has examined student activism, especially on the Left. Much more
remains to be learned than we can address in the Campus Activism Project.
We can, however, ask some questions that will point in a new direction
for research on campus activism.

Such questions include: who are campus activists in 2003 and how have
they developed their politics? What are their compelling issues? How
do conservative and progressive political movements attract and support
student activism on campus? How and about what do marginalized groups
organize on campus? What other forms of activism occur on campus? What
is the leadership pipeline for student activists who seek political work
after graduation? These questions have informed the creation of interview
schedules for the project.

The project will use the lens of social movement theory in hopes that
this approach facilitates comparisons between conservative and progressive
campus activism. From this experience we anticipate the ability to suggest
areas of further study. In the report to be published at the completion
of the project, we will summarize the project’s findings.

[9] Harriger, Katy J. and Jill J. McMillan, 2002, "Citizenship
Deferred:Political Attitudes, Experiences, and Entering Expectations
of First Year Students at a Liberal Arts College," Prepared for
delivery August 30, 2002 at the annual conference of the American Political
Science Association.Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political
Science Associatio Loeb, Paul R., 1994, Generation at the Crossroads:Apathy
and Action on the American Campus. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers
University Press p. 377.

U.S.Census Bureau, 2002, Voting and Registation in the Election of November
2000, 1-16: U.S. Government Table C, 2000, Table C, 2002.

[40] McEvoy, James and Abraham H. Miller, 1969, Black Power and Student
Rebellion. ; United States and President's Commission on Campus Unrest,
1970, The Report of the President's Commission on Campus Unrest.

[41] Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, 1971, Dissent and Disruption:Proposals
for Consideration by the Campus. New York: McGraw-Hill

[43] Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, 1971, Dissent and Disruption:Proposals
for Consideration by the Campus. ; Flacks, 1967, "The Liberated
Generation:an exploration of the roots of student protest." ; Westby,
David L. and Richard G. Braungart, 1966, "Class and Politics in
the Family Backgrounds of Student Political Activists."

[44] Lubell, Samuel, 1968, "The "Generation Gap"," The
Public Interest 13:52-60, ; Park, B. C. B., 2002, "Politicization
of Youth on College Campuses:Thoughts About Theories of Youth Activism," Paper
Presented at The Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association,
August 2002.

[46] Andrew, John A., 1997, The Other Side of the Sixties:Young Americans
for Freedom and the Rise of Conservative Politics. New Brunswick, N.J:
Rutgers University Press Perspectives on the Sixties, ; Lubell, Samuel,
1968, "The "Generation Gap"."

[51] Astin, Alexander W., Helen S. Astin, Alan Bayer, and Ann Bisconti,
1975, The Power of Protest:A National Study of Student and Faculty Disruptions
With Implications For The Future. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers

[52] {Vellela, 1988 178 /id}

[53] Keniston, Kenneth, 1965, The Uncommitted: Alienated Youth in American
Society1st. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World ; Keniston, Kenneth,
1968, Young Radicals: Notes on Committed Youth. ; Loeb, Paul Rogat, 1994,
Generation at the Crossroads:Apathy and Action on the American Campus.

[54] Loeb, Paul Rogat, 1994, Generation at the Crossroads:Apathy and
Action on the American Campus. p. 19.

[65] Glasker, Wayne, 2002, Black Students in the Ivory Tower:African
American Student Activism at the University of Pennsylvania, 1967-1990.
Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press ; Lesage, Julia, 2002, Making
a Difference:University Students of Color Speak Out. ; Rochlin, Jay M.,
1997, Race & Class on Campus:Conversations With Ricardo's Daughter.

[74] For discussions of the idea of civil society, see: Adam Seligman,
The Idea of Civil Society New York: The Free Press, 1992; Jean L. Cohen
and Andrew Arato, Civil Society and Political Theory, Boston, MA: Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, 1994; William F. Felice Taking Suffering Seriously:
The Importance of Collective Human Rights Albany, NY: State University
of New York Press 1996; John Keane Civil Society: Old Images, New Visions.
Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998; and Mervyn Frost Constituting Human Rights:
Global Civil Society and the Society of Democratic States London: Routledge
2002.

[75] Park, op cit. p.11.

[76] Gold, Alice R., Richard Christie, and Lucy Friedman, 1976, Fists
and Flowers:a Social Psychological Interpretation of Student Dissent.
New York: Academic Press ; Stiles, Elizabeth A., 2002, "Social Movements,
Policy Initiatives and Political Outcomes at the U.S. State Level," Paper
presented at the Annual Conference of the American Political Science
Association .p.9.

[77]{1985 222 /id;Lipset, 1975 143 /id}.

[78] Soule, Sarah, 1997, "The Student Divestment Movement in the
United States and Tactical Diffusion:The Shantytown Protest," Social
Forces 75[3], p. pp. 855-883.

[80] Andrews, Kenneth and Michael Biggs, 2001, "The Dynamics of
Protest Diffusion:the 1960 Sit-in Movement in the American South," Presented
at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.